My addons just went wild today

[hamiltonmath]

So, boot up like normal - There is definitely something wrong. For one, one of my addons started going nuts telling all the things that I've sold for the past 45 (ish?) days. My Wizard's is blank, my Personal Assistant stopped functioning; my Hodor's was turned off, Advanced Synergy toggle was flashing....everywhere went haywire.

I'm mostly concerned with how many hours I spent making setups for various contents, and all the rules that Personal Assistant would run for me. They are gone. Any idea what happened today? I seem to be the only one affected.

[Sharlikran]

Nope. I did tech support for almost 15 years for various companies including Microsoft. What you are reporting is the reason I don't help people troubleshoot mod installs because certain things people report just don't happen. I empathize with your situation and only want to stress that it's not resolvable.

Users typically report things like, "The Game updated now all my mods don't work!" or they update a mod and then post in ten other mods "After today's update nothing works!" and things like that. Part of troubleshooting is that you need to consider, is it expected. In your case, no... every single saved variables file for all the configurations for all your mods, won't suddenly disappear. Not for any reason. Not a game patch, not a mod update, and not Minion either.

Since it's not expected then there is nothing you can google or find a youtube video for. Nobody breaks their game for testing like yours to see what happens.

Which leads us to a very important thing with the upcoming Update 41.

Everyone should be keeping WEEKLY backups of their saved varaibles folder.

People should already be doing this now. If you had a copy from about a week ago, you could restore it and only need maybe one week of sales (server keeps 10 days) and you would be good to go. Because you and thousands of others don't do that, then you are out of luck.

A hypothesis though.

https://esouimods.github.io/3-master....html#OneDrive

Most computers have OneDrive configured to backup the Documents folder. Most likely, somehow, that sync was corrupted or lost. So all the files went POOF! If they are on OneDrive (the cloud) then copy them to a temp folder, disable the backup, and then copy them to a new SavedVariables folder. Otherwise disable OneDrive from backing up your Documents folder well in advance of Update 41 and then keep weekly backups.

If you use MM then consult the docs on how to backup files: https://esouimods.github.io/3-master...GuildStoreData

[Baertram]

What you did
Open the browser
Open a website
Navigate to the forum
Check the forums which subforum might be the correct one
Ignore all that is there and just start a new thread
Think about what to type (and the text, as Sharlikran already wrote, is kind of a very "it worked before and now it doesn't" without any details...)
Type it
Wait for angry answers because we repeat ourselves here for thousands of users who are simply to lazy to read and help themselves EVEN THOUGH all info was provided already AND the forum search would find it properly easy too.


What you should have done instead
Open the browser
Open a website
Navigate to the forum
Check the forums which subforum might be the correct one
Read the top sticky threads at this forum (Addon help)
and
Use the forum search to find similar issues
Find out, by the sticky thread "[HOWTO]Find the addon install directory" https://www.esoui.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8858 and similar that your issue is either related to Microsoft OneDrive or your live/AddOns folder moved to AppData maybe (-> find out by the help of the Screenshot trick).

If that does not fix it, think about what to type, tell us what you did read and tried already, or where you need help to understand, instead of writing us something like "Yesterday all was fine and today not".
Maybe add screenshots, list of enabled addons, LibDebugLogger log files like described at "How to report errors" sticky.


I hope it's understandable that we somehow get annoyed by that kind of posts here, each day, again and again. We are not here to invest our time (on top of creating and maintaining the addons in that time already) to fix/support your laziness guys, thanks for doing research on your own AND providing info what was done, in detail, screenshots, LibDebugLogger log file, error code, etc. so we are at least able to properly help.

[hamiltonmath]

Sounds good. I did check the threads. Here's a list of the things from the threads that I checked:

If you have a specific addon related question or bug report:
It wasn't a specific addon.

If you request an addon fix/update/revive:
That's not what I'm doing.

If you want to know how dependencies/libraries work and how to fix older addons yourself:
That's not what my problem is. All my libs are up to date.

If you want to take-over an abandoned addon/Before creating a patch/copy of an addon:
I do not want to do that.

If you want your addon to get removed from ESOUI & Minion:
I did not make an addon.

How do I locate the live/AddOns folder?
I know where my AddOns folder is located.

Why are images/textures the addon provides not shown/shown wrong/invisible ingame?
This is not my problem.

What are those "dependencies" or "libraries"?
My libraries are up-to-date and have no dependency issues.


How do I find and install needed dependencies/libraries for the addons I install?
I have all my dependencies installed in Minion.

Why can't I see any addons inside the game's AddOn manager?
I can see my addons inside the game's AddOn manager.

What are "SavedVariables" and how do I find, backup/restore/reset them?
I do have them. This problem happened approximately 3 years ago and when I restored them, I destroyed all my good information.

lua error messages ingame - How do I read them?
I do not have any new .lua issues.

I see any text in chat and cannot find the addon it belongs to/comes from?
I did not have any new text in chat.


Why don't my keybinds (at the controller settings ingame) save properly?
My keybinds are behaving normally.

I have allowed Out of Date addons. I have read that they may/may not work, but out of date does not necessarily mean non-working.

Addons, libraries and load order of dependencies is not my problem.


I will look at your suggestions on OneDrive possibly creating an erroneous backup. I would also report that it is behaving as if I have a new @name. I would like information about the recent patch and if something changed due to character naming. I found a thread on my searches (on the forums, not here): https://forums.elderscrollsonline.co...ame-and-addons

This is what happened to me. But, my name did not change. I would hypothesize the following:
Many years ago, probably likely at the same time that I was using OneDrive, I changed my @name, and unfortunately went though the whole process of reconfiguring all my settings, and after the fact realized that I could have just changed some .lua files to update my addons.

What if somehow, my OneDrive reconnected with the saved variables folder from before and the reason my add-ons are not working are because it is pulling my old @name instead of my current?

[Baertram]

Originally Posted by hamiltonmath How do I locate the live/AddOns folder? I know where my AddOns folder is located.

Yeah, you think you know it
But did you actually try the simple ingame screenshot trick mentioned there to "actually proof your idea where it should be"?
That was what I was asking for, as sometimes oneDrive and/or ESO itsself messes that up and your addons and SavedVariables are expected somewhere totally else then! e.g. not in documents/elder scrolls online but AppData/elder scrolls online all of sudden

Originally Posted by hamiltonmath I will look at your suggestions on OneDrive possibly creating an erroneous backup. I would also report that it is behaving as if I have a new @name. I would like information about the recent patch and if something changed due to character naming. I found a thread on my searches (on the forums, not here): https://forums.elderscrollsonline.co...ame-and-addons This is what happened to me. But, my name did not change. I would hypothesize the following: Many years ago, probably likely at the same time that I was using OneDrive, I changed my @name, and unfortunately went though the whole process of reconfiguring all my settings, and after the fact realized that I could have just changed some .lua files to update my addons. What if somehow, my OneDrive reconnected with the saved variables folder from before and the reason my add-ons are not working are because it is pulling my old @name instead of my current?

Yes, that could be that it uses old SavdeVariables with your old @name now. Chekc the *.lua file contents of the files in live/SavedVariables and see if you find your @newAccountName in them or only the @oldName.

Hope you got a backup of your new SavedVariables then somewhere so you can simply copy them over.
But do that ingame screenshot trick before to chekc WHERE EXACTLY ESO thinks your "live" folder is now

[hamiltonmath]

Alright, will try this when I get home, thank you:

How do I locate the live/AddOns folder?
If you are not able to locate the correct folder where to extract the addons to you will find the information here:
How to install an addon

Important: The live/AddOns folder will be created after your first login to the game, it will be missing if you had not logged in before at least once!
You are able to manually create it, but make sure to respect the upper-case characters: "AddOns"

In addition you can login, take a screenshot via they screenshot keybind and watch the text written at the top right corner of the screen.
The folder shown there should be the one where your subfolder "AddOns" will be located (1 folder above "Screenshots"), e.g.
c:\users\username\documents\elder scrolls online\live\Screenshots -> The addon folder will be c:\users\username\documents\elder scrolls online\live\AddOns

As a base troubleshooting rule: Make sure you logout before you update any addons or dependencies!
Why? Because addons use txt files (same name as the addon's folder) to tell the game what dependencies they need. And if the addon updtes and needs new/updated dependencies (versions) it might fail to recognize that and partailly load, but throw error messages, which you would not get if you had logged out before and updated the addons and dependencies properly. The game read those txt files in total at first client login, and not always "in total" if you just do a character switch or /reloadui ingame).

[hamiltonmath]

So, I'm not sure what is happening now. I recreated the addons, but now we have issues again. Every addon I use is going back to first time setup now. Even backing them up is not saving them.

[Sharlikran]

Did you follow the suggestions in my link for OneDrive?

[Baertram]

Originally Posted by hamiltonmath So, I'm not sure what is happening now. I recreated the addons, but now we have issues again. Every addon I use is going back to first time setup now. Even backing them up is not saving them.

Either your addons are not properly saved because
A) You leave the game with ALT+F4 or it crashes -> Nothing saved properly to SavedVariables then!
B) Your AntiVirus/Windows Defender blocks access to the SavedVariables folder c:\users\....\documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\SavedVariables
or whatever the screenshot trick mentioned above tells you is the correct folder that ESO thinks it should use!!!
C) MS OneDrive sync of your documents folder is enabled and it blocks access to that live\SavedVariables folder, and or restroes old data from OneDrive cloud
D) Any other software is blocking access to your documents folder -> Check Windows event logs and Windows Security history, and or other instaleld anti virus/malware log files -> Whitelist your user's documents/other folder determiend by screenshot trick for the ESO executable YourESOInstallDirectory\The Elder Scrolls Online\game\client\eso64.exe
E) You got any other problems on your PC (Update antivirus, scan whole PC for malware, etc.)